WOMAN ADMITS `STUPID' MISTAKE

A woman who police said was driving drunk with her 7-month-old lying in the back seat said Wednesday that she made a mistake she'll never make again.

Police said they found the woman driving in Squire Village about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday in a friend's car with her baby, an 18-year-old friend and a half-full bottle of cognac on the floor.

"I was at my friend's house, and she was going to let me use her car," said Karen Gomez, 21, of 509 Burnside Ave. in East Hartford. "Then she called the cops on me."

Gomez spoke briefly Wednesday after her arraignment in Manchester Superior Court. She was released on a promise to return to court July 19.

Asked if she knew what she was doing, she said, "Yes. It was a mistake. ... Stupid."

Gomez was charged with taking a motor vehicle without the owner's permission, driving under the influence, drinking while operating a motor vehicle, risk of injury to a minor, driving without headlights and failure to properly restrain a child.

According to Officer Curtis Sinatro's report, Gomez's friend called police at 12:26 a.m. Wednesday from Ruby Drive. When police arrived, the woman told them Gomez had grabbed the keys to her car and refused to give them back. The friend briefly left the room, and Gomez took the car.

While police talked to the friend, they saw her car, a gray Toyota, moving slowly, with no headlights on, toward the intersection of Queens Court and Ruby Drive. The cars' headlights suddenly went on, police said, and the car accelerated onto Ruby Drive. Sinatro and Officer John Rossetti jumped into a patrol car and stopped the car after it turned right onto Channing Drive.

Gomez got out of the car, her breath smelling strongly of alcohol, Sinatro wrote. She needed to brace herself with both hands against the car to keep from falling. She was extremely confrontational, he wrote. On the floor was a bottle of Remy Red, and her son was lying across the back seat, according to the report.

At headquarters, her blood-alcohol content registered 0.141 percent and 0.130 percent, police said. Both are over the legal limit.